Eat In And Cook Your Way To A Greener Lifestyle

There are many ways to discover green living and admittedly, some are more time-consuming than others.  Cooking is one of those things that fall into the time-consuming category.  As a result, it tends to get sacrificed in a time-crunch situation in favour of restaurant food.  Well here’s some eco-guilt to persuade you back in the kitchen.

Figures from the Food Service Technology Center estimate that only about 35 percent of energy used by the average full-service restaurant actually goes toward preparing the food. The balance comes from refrigeration, heating, cooling, lighting, and just about everything else it takes to keep customers coming back. On the whole, restaurants are very energy-intensive, requiring about five times as much energy per square foot as offices or retail businesses. Also, studies of restaurants, schools, and cafeterias have found that anywhere between 10 percent and 25 percent of commercially prepared food gets wasted. With a little bit of planning, you can probably do way better than that in your own kitchen.  Here’s a suggestion for those who are concerned about the impact of cooking for one: cook in bulk so you have enough for several meals.  You’ll appreciate having it ready to go.

Having said all this (and not to discourage keeping the economy going), some restaurants are far greener than others.  In other words, with a little research you can still discover green living when eating out.  The good green restaurants follow strict environmental practices and they probably aren’t shy about advertising them.  They’ll be easy to find so when you do eat out, support restaurants that are committed to green initiatives.

There are many way to discover green living, some will take more effort than others but when you take all the considerations into account, is a little dicing and slicing such a sacrifice?